Board approves student fee
By ROBERT LINNEHAN
The Cherry Hill Sun
8/7/2010

The board of education is fine-tuning the final details of a plan that will require all students to pay a fee if they are plan to participate in any extracurricular activities for the 2010-2011 school year.

The board last week voted 9-0 to institute a policy that will require all middle and high school students to pay a student fee. Students who are eligible for free or reduced lunches would not have to pay the fee.

Students who choose not to pay the fee won’t be eligible for any extracurricular activities in the district, which include sports, drama, theater, and even the senior prom.

The student fee will be discussed at the next policy and legislation committee meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 3 at 6 p.m., Board of Education President Seth Klukoff said. Members will decide how much students will be expected to pay and a maximum amount for one family.

The committee will also discuss which other types of students may be exempt from paying the fee.

Visit www.cherryhillsun for updates on the fees.

The board is scheduled to vote on the entire policy on Aug. 10.

Because this is a new policy to the district, Klukoff said it will be examined closely throughout the school year, and there will be several meeting inviting the public’s feedback on how it can be improved.

“Because this type of fee is brand new to the district and we’ve never done this before, we’re going to implement it through the course of the year and have a number of focus groups with community members to get feedback on a regular basis,” he said. “We’ll find out if there are ways to enhance this for the following years. We’re all going through this together.”

Klukoff said this new policy was first discussed in March when the budget was being crafted.

The loss of state aid put the district in a tough position, he said, and district representatives did not want to cut any of the programs.

He also stressed that the collection and organization of the fees will not necessitate the hiring of another administrator in the school district.

In other school district news:

The board passed a contract for $6,500 to work with the New Jersey School Boards Association. The NJSBA will help the district in its search for a new superintendent, Klukoff said.

A kick off meeting – open to the public – will be held on Tuesday Aug. 17 to introduce the NJSBA to the board of education. Klukoff said it’s an open public meeting where logistics, timetables and specifications for the superintendent search will be discussed.

The board similarly hired the University of Pennsylvania to help the district in its search when Dr. David Campbell was ultimately hired in 2006. Klukoff said this contract is significantly less than the one with the University of Pennsylvania, as that was for about $50,000.

“They will help to coordinate and manage the process from beginning to end for the superintendent search.

That will range in helping us with the timetable of the search, identifying meaningful opportunities for the community to be involved, and working with the board,” he said. “The board will obviously have the final say and will be closely involved until the end.”